MacStories Weekly: Issue 119
In this issue: Apollo, Favorite Alfred Integrations, a workflow for saving multiple files to DEVONthink and linking them in Things, Paul Williams explains how he manages a university’s student admin services in iPads Around the World, an interview with co-founder and president of DEVONtechnologies’ Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann, a Bear tip, plus the usual Links, a couple of sticker packs, a preview of next week’s episode of AppStories, and a recap of MacStories articles.
MACSTORIES RECOMMENDS
Great apps, accessories, gear, and media recommended by the MacStories team.
Apollo
![](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="250" height="250"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
Apollo is an iOS Reddit client that launched less than six months ago, but immediately impressed me with its debut. The app’s lengthy development process truly showed, as developer Christian Selig loaded Apollo out of the gate with strengths in several areas, including the general feed browsing experience, iPad Pro support, and extensive customization options.
The classic Reddit browsing experience has always been a turnoff for me, both because font and other design choices make it unattractive, and because the layout has always been a big visual mess. Apollo fixes that. It presents Reddit feeds in a clean, organized interface. As you’re scrolling a feed, the most important bits of each post stand out more thanks to darker, bolder colors, while less important elements like buttons to downvote or upvote remain more muted – the result is that your eyes are drawn to just what matters most. Another helpful design touch is the use of icons that look and feel standard to iOS; plus there are mechanics common on iOS, like swipe gestures to quickly take action on a post with a swipe right or left.
Two other design elements worth highlighting are the Jump Bar and threaded message views. Apollo’s Jump Bar is accessed by tapping the center of the title bar at the top of the screen; this area houses the name of the feed you’re currently viewing, but if you tap it, options will appear for quickly switching to one of your favorite subreddits, or typing in the name of any other subreddit – which, thanks to quick auto-generating results, is an extremely efficient way to journey somewhere new. Threaded messages are a core part of the Reddit experience, but they can be hard to navigate without forgetting exactly which message a user is replying to. Apollo seeks to avert this problem by adding different colored vertical lines to the left of each message that indicate where a message fits in a thread’s hierarchy. If there’s no line, the message is replying to the original post; a red line is one level down, then orange, yellow, green, and so on. Once you use the app a bit, you learn what each color means, helping ensure you never get lost when reading a popular thread.
Based on the track records of the biggest social networks, you’d think that social feed apps simply didn’t work on iPad. Instagram and Snapchat don’t even have iPad apps, while Facebook’s still isn’t optimized for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and Twitter, though easily the best of the bunch, offers little in the way of iPad optimizations – essentially, the iPhone’s feed is resized for the iPad’s display. Apollo’s iPad app isn’t the strongest, imitating Twitter’s approach of simply offering a larger feed for the iPad’s big display, but fortunately it does already support both the largest iPad Pro and Split View. Those details are a great start, and from the sound of it, they won’t be the end. Christian Selig shared on AppStories that one of his long-term goals is to take full advantage of the power and screen real estate of the iPad, and he already has initial design drafts for what that might look like.
Customization is the last Apollo strength I’ll mention. Thanks to the substantial amount of tools built into Apollo’s Settings screen, you can personalize the app for an optimal Reddit experience. From a visual standpoint, this includes choosing from a variety of excellent custom app icons, switching between light and dark modes (including the option for an iPhone X-friendly true black), and modifying text size, post size, and more. User-generated content you see can be modified based on keywords you choose to exclude, and you can also block users, and remove certain subreddits from your ‘All Posts’ view. The swipe gestures I mentioned earlier can be customized to your heart’s content – you can even set different swipe actions based on which part of the app you’re using. Finally, Apollo also includes a variety of smaller preference tweaks to help make the app your own. Overall, the number of customization options is truly impressive.
When I wrote my initial review, I said that Apollo “may just be the best designed social feed app I’ve ever used” – and I stand by that. I’m still not a regular Reddit user, but Apollo makes me want to be one. It makes Reddit more accessible to new users than ever, while also providing power user customizations to make any Redditor happy.
MACSTORIES COLLECTIONS
Favorite Alfred Integrations
Alfred is much more than a macOS app launcher. The app, which just turned 8 last week, can do an extraordinary amount with files, system settings, and built-in macOS features, but one of my favorite features is Alfred’s extensibility. Workflows and File Actions are a way to extend Alfred’s functionality to third-party apps. There’s a thriving community of users creating workflows at packal.org, which is worth checking out, and app developers themselves are creating integrations with Alfred too. Here are some of my favorites:
Fantastical
Fantastical’s superpower is its ability to transform natural language into calendar events. Alfred takes that power to a new level by eliminating the need to switch to the Fantastical Mac app. Simply trigger the workflow in Alfred’s input window with the ‘cal’ command, and then type something like ‘Record AppStories with Federico next Thursday at 12:30 pm.’ Fantastical’s natural language engine will parse the input and put the event in your default calendar. All of Fantastical’s natural language calendar syntax works in the Alfred workflow, including the ability to specify which calendars events should be added to by using the forward slash command plus the name, or partial name, of the calendar – for example, ‘/f’ or ‘/family’ if you have a calendar named ‘Family’.
The workflow works with the Reminders app too. As with events, type ‘cal’ into Alfred then ‘reminder,’ ‘task,’ ‘todo,’ or ‘√,’ plus the text of your reminder. You can add exclamation points to the end of the entry to specify the priority of the task too.
Numi
Numi, the plain-text calculator app that was last week’s MacStories Weekly Favorite, works with Alfred too. The keyword for summoning Numi in Alfred is as simple and elegant as the app itself: ’n’. The Numi workflow can handle any of the app’s plain English-style calculations except ones involving time zones. When you’ve finished typing your equation, the solution is displayed in the Alfred window, which may be all you need for a quick calculation. Hit the return key though, and the Numi workflow will copy the entire equation and solution to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere on your Mac.
Deliveries
Deliveries is an Alfred workflow I use all the time. Made by Junecloud, the creator of the popular package tracking app, the workflow is triggered by the keyword ‘track.’ Unlike Fantastical’s and Numi’s workflows, the track command will open Deliveries if it’s not currently running. My typical use for the workflow is when I land on the ‘Thank you for your order’ page on Amazon. I copy the order number, type ‘track’ into Alfred, then paste in the order number. Hitting the return key launches Deliveries with the order number pre-populated in the app’s ‘Add Delivery’ window.
Dash
Dash is an app for searching and viewing developer documentation. There are dozens of documentation sets available to download into Dash. Like Deliveries, the Dash command can launch its app. There are two commands available to launch Dash from Alfred and kick off a search. Combining the term ‘dash’ with a search term opens dash and searches across all of the documentation you have in the app. You can perform a more focused search using a documentation-specific search. For example ‘python3 array’ will search the Python 3 documentation I previously downloaded into Dash for any instances of the word array. Search is incredibly fast, making the ‘dash’ command a great way to find documentation quickly while you’re in the middle of a project.
Yoink
Yoink is a little different than the other Alfred tricks listed above. First, you can turn it on by going to the Advanced tab in Yoink’s Preferences. Second, instead of being a workflow, it’s what Alfred calls a File Action. To invoke it, first you need to find the file you want. Type ‘open’ then begin typing the name of the file. When you find the file you want in Alfred, tap the right arrow key to open a list of File Actions. Start typing ‘Yoink’ to narrow the available actions, highlight Yoink’s, and hit return. That will automatically park the file in Yoink for using elsewhere on your Mac. I find this Alfred trick to be especially useful if I have a file I need to send to people by email repeatedly throughout the day.
TIPS
Tips and tricks to master your apps and be more productive.
Previewing HEX Colors in Bear
Earlier this week, Bear user Juan Orozco shared on Twitter a discovery he made in the popular note-taking app. Inside any of your notes, if you type in a HEX color code, Bear will display that tagged color inline next to the code. This can be a great visual aid for professional designers, but also for anyone working on a home or work project that involves keeping a record of certain colors.
Bear is beginning to establish a record of including fun hidden features in its app. One other recent example was its custom icons for certain tags. Initially, users could only uncover these icons through natural discovery, but recently the full, spoiler-filled list of custom icons with their corresponding tags was published.
SHORTCUTS CORNER
Get help and suggestions for your iOS shortcuts and productivity apps.
Shortcuts Essentials
DEVONmenu: Saving Multiple Files in DEVONthink (with Things Integration)
For the past several months, I’ve been refining a DEVONthink workflow I previously covered in a couple of issues of MacStories Weekly as well as MacStories. The workflow, which I called “DEVONmenu” then “DEVONmenu Plus”, was originally shared here and perfected in the Q&A section of MacStories Weekly #118.
My DEVONmenu workflow was designed to save different types of files in DEVONthink using the app’s URL scheme; to do so, it checked whether the input item (shared with the Workflow extension) was a Safari webpage, a PDF, an image, or some text. DEVONmenu worked well, but my approach to manually checking each individual file type, creating a conditional block for every item, ultimately became a limitation. DEVONthink supports dozens of different file types, but if I wanted to support them all in my workflow, I had to duplicate the same actions and conditions dozens of times, thus making the Workflow insanely long and hard to read. I needed to figure out a more elegant system that would allow me to eliminate code, cut down on the number of If blocks, and scale the workflow to several new file types.
After thinking about this problem for a while, I realized that I could apply the lessons I learned in making the richer save menu for Things (see Issue 117) and use them to simplify, yet at the same time dramatically enhance, my DEVONmenu workflow. So I set out to rethink DEVONmenu with the goal of supporting as many file types as possible and, while I was at it, integrating it with my Things Parser workflow to give users the option to save DEVONthink items as tasks in Things.
Here’s the short version: the new DEVONmenu workflow supports multiple files passed as input (either via the action extension or manually picked with a Files picker in Workflow) of the following types:
- Safari webpages
- Web Archives
- Images
- Text
- PDFs
- Videos
- MP3s
- HTML
- CSV
These types are based on the list of files that DEVONthink can natively render in the app. In addition to letting you enter a name and comment for each file, you can choose a destination group in DEVONthink. For each file, you’ll be asked whether you want to create a related task in Things or not; if you turn the item into a task, you’ll be able to add metadata to the task using my natural language syntax. I’ve been testing this workflow with several different files over the past week, and it’s been working incredibly well for me, both as an extension and file picker. If you regularly find yourself saving files in DTTG and wanting to recall them as tasks in Things (or other task managers if you’ve adapted my Things parser for something else), I bet this workflow will come in handy.
Let’s get into the technical details now. There are two key concepts to understand in this workflow. Just like my Things save menu workflow, in order to support a variety of file types without creating a condition for each of them, the match of a regular expression is used as a condition instead. While the Things workflow’s regular expression was based on identified types (e.g. Photo, Safari web page, Text, etc.), this workflow uses file extensions, which allows us to be more precise in selecting file types and associating them with specific UTIs, which DEVONthink requires in the URL scheme.
Overall though, the idea is the same: a regex checks an input item, and if there’s a match, it means we can save the file with the same command that is shared for every supported file type.
The second idea I had to make this workflow more powerful and slimmer at the same time was to programmatically check for the file’s UTI each time Workflow is processing a file instead of hard-coding it as text myself. After checking with DEVONtechnologies’ Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann (whom we interviewed this week) on which UTIs DEVONthink natively supports, I assembled a Dictionary action that contains file extensions and associated UTIs as key:value pairs, as pictured below.
You can guess what I did next: because I was switching the workflow to have a single createDocument action, I decided to use the match of the regular expression – the file extension – as the key to obtain its value from the dictionary. This way, when the workflow is processing a file, it doesn’t need to have multiple If blocks for each type: a single URL scheme is constructed thanks to variables that dynamically change the contents, name, and UTI of each file. This makes it possible to catch any supported file type and build a URL scheme at runtime that uses the correct UTI, therefore telling DEVONthink how it should save a video, a photo, a CSV, and so forth. And, as always, the best part: when you run the workflow, you won’t have to care about any of these technical details that go on behind the scenes.
Besides the aforementioned two core concepts, the rest of the workflow is similar to the original version of DEVONmenu. In fact, it’s even more compact because of the reduction of conditions. All the actions are contained in a Repeat block that we use to save each item to DEVONthink, switching back and forth between the app and Workflow. Unlike the first DEVONmenu, this one asks you to manually pick files if the input from the action extension is empty.
Thanks to iOS 11, you can pick multiple items at once from the Files picker (which supports both iCloud Drive and third-party locations).
At the beginning of the Repeat block, there’s the usual condition to check for Safari webpages shared from the extension, which requires a different URL command than other document types. The workflow lets you choose whether you want to save a webpage as .webarchive or PDF, asks you for an optional comment, then launches DEVONthink to save the webpage and return to Workflow.
If the item being processed is not a Safari webpage, the regex-matching technique kicks in and checks if the file’s extension is among the supported ones. If it’s not, the workflow will give you an error message and tell you to start over, excluding that file because it can’t be rendered by DEVONthink.
If the file is supported, Workflow will preview it with Quick Look as an extra confirmation step, then ask you to enter a title and comment to use in DEVONthink. Everything will then be encoded, saved in DEVONthink, and you’ll return to Workflow. Rinse and repeat for every file passed as input and processed by the workflow. At the very end, you’ll end up with a list of names and DEVONthink item links for each file you’ve saved in the app, which you can use as reference somewhere else on your device.
As I mentioned above, I added an option in the new DEVONmenu to create a task in Things for an item saved in DTTG. This requires my Things Parser workflow to be installed because it’ll run as a function inside DEVONmenu. The item’s name, comment, and DEVONthink link will be pre-filled by the workflow, so all you need to do is enter a natural language date and other fields supported by my syntax. As you can see, I decided to copy the text to the clipboard in DEVONmenu because my Things Parser workflow also reads text from the system clipboard.
Thanks to Workflow’s excellent x-callback-url support, Things Parser is seamlessly integrated with DEVONmenu – you won’t even notice that you’re running a separate workflow.
If you don’t want to save a file to Things as a task, you can just choose ‘Don’t Save’ and the workflow will continue. You can also get rid of this Things integration if you never need to save DTTG items as tasks – just delete the Choose from Menu block. If you do so, make sure that the final Text and Add to Variable actions stay inside the Repeat block so you can still receive a list of DEVONthink item links at the end.
I’m happy with the changes I’ve made to DEVONmenu. This workflow is one of my most used ones, and I’ve been thinking for a long time about ways to improve it without adding too many actions. I like that I can now save files as reference material in DTTG and also make them actionable items in Things using a simple syntax. The only issue I’ve noticed is that, due to iOS memory constraints, large files such as videos sometimes can’t be encoded in the URL scheme and sent to DEVONthink. In my experience, this problem occurs randomly and is often “fixed” by simply running the workflow again.
Getting started with this workflow is easy: just change the names and UUIDs of the DEVONthink groups in the second Dictionary action based on your own installation of DEVONthink. There’s nothing else you need to configure. I hope to continue extending this workflow with new file types if DEVONtechnologies expands the list of files supported by DEVONthink. As always, if you have ideas for possible improvements, feel free to reach out.
You can get the new DEVONmenu workflow here.
INTERESTING LINKS
Great reads and links from around the web.
Earlier this week, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe caused a stir by stating that MoviePass collects data on users’ routes to the theater and where they go afterwards. Although the situation is not entirely clear, Engadget reports that MoviePass released an update to its iOS app that suggests it may have backed off the practice by removing ’unused app location capabilities’ from the app. (Link)
Fiat Chrysler announced it will offer Apple Music for free for six months to consumers in the U.S. who purchase any new Chrysler, Dodge, FIAT, Jeep or Ram vehicle with CarPlay support. (Link)
Fortnite, the popular multiplayer shooter by Epic Games, is coming to iOS and it’ll support cross-play between PS4, Mac, PC, and eventually Android. Beta signups open on Monday, March 12. (Link)
THE ALBUM
We love stickers in iMessage, and here we'll share some of our favorites.
Please be loving! 2
An overweight, dancing chicken-person with a head the shape of an egg is one thing, but add a bunch of silly dance moves and this animated sticker pack is one of my favorites. The hardest part of this pack is deciding which one to torment your friends with first.
Skeleton Party
Animated skeletons like to party too. They dance, play air guitar, and even give each other slow motion high fives. Though not as bizarre as Skeletons, Etc., these stickers are a good way to extend your skeleton sticker collection.
APP DEBUTS
Noteworthy new app releases and updates, handpicked by the MacStories team.
Waze
Waze, the popular navigation app for drivers who want to spend as little time stuck in traffic as possible, has been updated this week with a redesigned ETA screen that lets you see a traffic forecast for your destination before you even start driving. I don’t always like Waze’s approach when it comes to aggressively finding shortcuts through lesser known roads, but this is one of the many features of the app I’d love to see in Google Maps too.
iCab Mobile
My favorite third-party browser for iOS now offers the ability to automate its download manager with rules. With this feature, you can create presets to post-process specific downloads once they’re finished and perform actions such as moving them to a sub-folder, applying a label, or changing the file name. There’s a handful of conditions to choose from, which should grant enough flexibility to make iCab automatically organize downloaded files for you. Just like the smart folder feature for bookmarks, download rules are exclusive to customers who bought the app within the last year or users who’ve purchased a tip in the app’s built-in tip jar.
The latest update to Google’s iOS app features two notable additions: an iMessage app and a new share extension. In iMessage, Google’s app enables searching for and sending GIFs, as well as searching for locations you want to share with friends. The app’s share extension, run from inside a browser like Safari, will present a list of pages that are related to the page you’re currently viewing. This feature was added last year to the browsing experience within the Google app, but now you can use it no matter which app you prefer to browse in.
Morning Reader
Morning Reader is an excellent way to get the day’s technology headlines. Tap on a headline and you’re taken to the full story in Safari. This week, Morning Reader caught cryptocurrency fever, adding a Blockchain news section that is accessed from the menu button at the top of the screen.
TheParallaxView
TheParallaxView demonstrates two optical illusions that take advantage of ARKit. There are two tricks from which to choose, which work best when viewed with one eye closed. The first is a series of three-dimensional white rectangles that look like a skyscraper emerging from your iPhone. The second is a stepped box effect that recedes into the distance. It’s a little surprising that the app passed App Review given the recent addition to the App Review Guidelines of a rule against demo apps, but it’s still a fun example of what can be done with ARKit.
CLUB INTERVIEWS
A brief chat with friends of Club MacStories.
Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann
Twitter: @eboehnisch. Co-founder and president of DEVONtechnologies.
DEVONthink has been in development for several years now. What kind of changes have you observed in the tech industry that required you to evolve the app in new directions?
When we released DEVONthink 1.0 in 2002 people were usually using just one device: their Mac. They had their data on the machine and worked with it. Many still bought their software on CDs, and we were among the first to sell solely online. Then came the iPhone and shortly after the iPad. At the same time, online services such as Dropbox or Apple’s own iDisk appeared. People began to use multiple devices and thus wanted to have access to their data from wherever they were.
Consequently, we had to evolve DEVONthink from a single-machine workplace application to a whole ecosystem that allows our users of today to not only organize their data but also make it available on all their Macs, iPads, and iPhones. And as our users are very privacy-sensitive – many are lawyers or scientists – our challenge was to implement all this without sacrificing functionality or forcing our users to sign up for a service they don’t want or trust. In 2002 DEVONthink was one application; today it’s four editions on the Mac, an iOS counterpart, and a sync mechanism that ties it all together.
Of course there were also the usual changes that every long-term Mac developer faced: new versions of the operating system bringing new UI paradigms and new functionality. Plus trends like RSS. We jumped those wagons that made sense at the time and resisted others that, in our eyes, were supposedly shorter-lived.
DEVONthink is such a complex app on the Mac. How do you decide which features to bring to iOS? I remember that DEVONthink To Go used to be more of a companion app for the desktop client several years ago.
When developing DEVONthink To Go our main goal was to make it not only a companion to DEVONthink for the Mac but an app that could be used stand-alone. And from what we’ve learned about our iOS community we have indeed an increasing number of users that don’t own a Mac but use DEVONthink To Go for organizing their documents on their iOS devices.
So when we discuss new features for DEVONthink To Go we always try to find a balance between the DEVONthink way and the iOS way. DEVONthink on the Mac is a powerful application with a certain complexity. Our users are power users, so they expect this functionality even if it makes the app’s learning curve a bit steeper. iOS users, however, are used to apps that are easy to use and are beautifully designed. For this they accept that apps don’t offer all the functionality of their Mac counterpart but fully embrace the way iOS works.
For every feature we add on the Mac side we ask, “Is this something that our iOS users want?” And if yes, then can we implement it in an iOS way? If we find that we can’t add it in a way that fits the iOS way of life and benefits our iOS users at the same time, we reconsider it when iOS itself has evolved further.
It feels like we have an ever-increasing amount of data coming at us. What is DEVONthink’s approach to the problem and your philosophy in developing tools to address it?
Our philosophy is to offer powerful tools that assist our users in storing and categorizing large amounts of data with as little manual intervention as possible. That’s, for example, why we embraced the Getting Things Done methodology of the central inbox: first you dump everything you want to keep into it without interrupting your workflow; later you come back and organize the info bits by tagging them, moving them to other groups, etc. The artificial intelligence the application is built on is designed to assist with these very tasks.
Other examples are DEVONthink’s extensive scripting possibilities, something that we’ll enhance further in future releases of DEVONthink. As every user has their very own way of handling and organizing their data, they can develop scripts that are hand-tailored to their workflows and automate repetitive tasks. DEVONthink To Go follows the same philosophy by offering a large number of URL commands and embracing the x-callback-url standard which makes it possible to develop sophisticated scripts in the Workflow app.
With the productivity features Apple brought to iOS 11, do you think it’s now possible for companies such as DEVONtechnologies to adapt more of their Mac apps to iOS?
Yes, absolutely. However, for me the biggest factor that keeps many Mac developers from porting their productivity apps to iOS is not the iOS APIs but the much lower accepted price level in the iOS App Store. Developers like Panic have removed apps from the App Store because the revenue that their productivity apps return on iOS is simply too low to justify serious development. This is, of course, different for high-volume apps like games.
What are your thoughts on the rumored Project Marzipan, the shared UI framework Apple is allegedly developing to bridge the gap between iOS and Mac apps?
Project Marzipan, which is presumably already used to make Apple’s Photos app, could be a great way for developers to offer their software on another platform. iOS apps would get the chance to win new customers on the Mac platform, which would be a welcomed chance, especially given the different economics of the iOS and Mac App Stores.
A Mac is not an iOS device, though, so if Apple opens this framework to the general public, developers will have to be very careful not to develop a great iOS app with a very mediocre Mac counterpart, and vice versa. Currently, for example, DEVONthink and DEVONthink To Go use completely different UI paradigms that are optimized for the Mac and for iOS to bring our users a good experience on both platforms. With Project Marzipan it all depends on how good the tools are that Apple provides and how much thought developers are ready to put into their creations.
Finally, I know that, in addition to DEVONtechnologies, you’re also a pilot and use flight-related apps on the iPhone and iPad for navigation. Could you tell me more about this other part of your life, and explain how iOS devices are helping in this regard?
For me being in a small plane cockpit is the exact opposite of developing an application. It’s not about constant problem-solving, multi-tasking, and being online 24/7. It’s about concentrating on flying the plane and seeing the world from a different, detached perspective. When I’m in the plane I’m offline. A welcome change from my otherwise always-on life.
My iPhone and my iPad have become the number one tools for flight planning and navigation. When preparing for the flight I use RunwayMap on my iPad to find good airfields to land, AeroWeather to check the weather along the route, and SkyDemon to plan the actual route. It offers me the official maps that I need, including all the facilities that are important to pilots: approach charts, radio frequencies, weather details, and more. For a recent trip to the Alpes the app also showed me all the official routes that Austria proposes along the valleys. So whatever I need to know before boarding the plane, I can conveniently check on my iPad and work into my flight preparations. Finally, I sync the flight planning to my iPhone.
When I’m finally in the pilot’s seat I mount my iPhone with a RAM Mount onto the control yoke. SkyDemon shows me my position and GPS altitude on the map, including the altitude of the terrain. It also warns me about possible obstacles or air spaces that might need a clearance. This is in addition to the plane’s own GPS, which is still more accurate and offers additional functionality in-flight.
In short: the iPad and iPhone are, for me, must-have companions for my flight preparations and in the plane.
IPADS AROUND THE WORLD
Stories about the unique and interesting ways people use the iPad.
This week we’re featuring our third installment of iPads Around the World. Previously, we’ve shared stories from a blind musician and a pair of interpreters who rely on the iPad for their work. Today, we’d like to introduce Paul Williams – Paul lives in Australia and uses his iPad to manage a university’s student admin services across six different campuses. As is clear from this interview, he is clearly well-versed in the ins and outs of iPad productivity, with a host of great apps and workflows mentioned here.
If you’re interested in hearing more from Paul, you can check out his blog or reach out on Twitter. Thank you Paul for sharing with us.
Paul Williams
Tell us who you are and what you do for a living.
My name is Paul Williams, 46 years old, and I currently manage Student Admin Services across six campuses (with two being regional locations) at an Australian University. My role has me spending a lot of time on the road managing staff in what is a large multisite contact centre covering calls, emails, chat, and face-to-face services.
What were you using before the iPad as your main computer in your job?
It started long before the iPad when I received my first Palm 3 and attempted to manage all my appointments and tasks using an electronic device instead of the tried and true paper day planner. I moved to a Palm Tungsten T2 then a Palm TX. All were suitable calendars and to-do list managers, but note taking wasn’t easy. Notes were limited to a big laptop or dragging around notepads.
What made you consider an iPad?
I was already a Mac user at home and owned an iPhone, but when the first iPad hit the market I was lucky enough to win one at a sales conference and I was sold – calendars, to-dos, and notes with the bonus of web and games. Yes it was limited, and in a PC-centric work environment there was a quite a bit of moving files around, however I eventually got the knack of managing through Dropbox and text editors.
Can you describe in detail how you use the iPad – what model do you have, which apps you use, and how you get your job done?
Today I run a 12.9-inch iPad Pro that manages all my requirements. Even in the PC-centric world where I work, I can remote in to my desktop to access data, files, and software specific to PCs. I can manage each campus from home, my office, or another campus with my iPad. I can call up call volumes, our CRM system, and MS based documents easily.
All my note taking is done via the keyboard, Markdown, and Drafts (currently the version 5 beta). I have pre-configured templates that I call up using keyboard actions. These templates I will fill in, create to-dos, then file. Using Drafts’ powerful actions I can create to-do items in Things 3 from my notes before finishing off my notes, then again, using actions I have created, edit and file the note in a specific location in DEVONthink To Go.
When attending meetings, this process can be a little different. Some meetings have preset agendas and papers, and those I ask to have supplied in PDF format and usually merged into one document. If they aren’t merged, I’ll do it myself in PDF Expert. As the file is usually emailed, I will drag and drop the PDF into DEVONthink To Go’s inbox. During the meeting, I will usually write on the PDF using my Apple Pencil and DEVONthink’s annotation tools, create to-dos as they come up (Things is always in Slide Over), and finally file in the correct place once completed.
For my task manager, after trying OmniFocus and 2Do, I finally settled on Things. It’s truly a great looking app, but it is also powerful in its simplicity. I use Things to manage small projects and day-to-day tasks at work and home.
Most of my writing starts in Drafts, however, when it’s time to do more business-related writing, Ulysses is my app of choice. Writing business cases and papers is a chore, however the focused writing environment aids in getting the writing on the screen free from the formatting fuss. In most cases the formatted PDF version from Ulysses has been acceptable at work; however, when it’s not I have Word on hand.
Fantastical is my calendaring tool of choice, however I’m still not happy with it. The iPad’s large screen really isn’t utilised well, and the app feels more like an iPhone-focused app. I have tried and like Timepage, but it just wasn’t enough. I like a good week view that can be focused on workdays only. One day someone will create a great calendaring app, but it is a niche product.
I have a big team spread far and wide, so Slack is our communication tool for general discussion, issue highlighting, and the occasional bit of fun. It really has cut down our email use and allows only the most important communications to go out on an email.
Email is always everyone’s biggest issue. I receive a lot of email and am always looking for the perfect tool. I have tried Airmail and Spark, both in combination with SaneBox, and still I head back to Mail.app. Apple’s app has the best look with a clean UI, it just lacks some of the power features that Airmail and Spark have. Give me those power features in Mail.app and I would be over the moon.
As I have a lot of staff, I need to closely manage my resources and see at a glance where people are located. A little known app is Mobilinked’s OrgChart. This app creates professional looking org charts that can be made into PDFs to share. Mobilinked also has a project management app called Quick Plan Pro – it’s a simple project tool for when a project gets a little complex for Things. Quick Plan Pro is not an OmniPlan-level app, but if your needs are simpler, it works like a treat.
Reading is carried out across a number of apps: Unread/Fiery Feeds for RSS, iBooks for novels, and magazines like Wired and Harvard Business Review have their own apps.
I have a range of other work-related apps not used regularly, but as required: Office 365 apps, Keynote, Power BI, OmniOutliner, Gladys, Copied, and much more
Finally, for pleasure I have lots of games. The iPad is great for board games, strategy games, and sims. The phone gets all the casual games. For social media, Twitter is number 1, and Tweetbot has been my client for years.
How has iOS 11 impacted the way you’re able to multitask between different apps and workflows?
The addition of drag and drop to Split View/Slide Over has made things a little simpler. Getting data from one app to another is so much easier, and drag and drop has simplified a number of workflows for me. If I need them, Drafts actions can often make life easier again. Some people may find this strange, but I have found Drafts easier than Workflow – for some reason it clicked with me more, not to mention most of my needs are text-based.
What’s your experience with working on the iPad but dealing with a PC-centric world been like? Are there any limitations or other issues involved with making the iPad fit into this landscape?
Due to the needs of our virtual contact centre and face-to-face support, I have a number of software requirements that are PC-based. None of the applications have iOS or Mac versions, so I am forced to operate via remote access. Parallels is best for this for the handful of times I use remote access; it does the job well.
iOS 11 has made things even easier and has given me even greater flexibility to manage my teams and tasks. A real positive has been the investment in new iPads for my team. This allows them to be more mobile, operate away from their desks, and work collaboratively. Lucky for me, I can teach them the skills and tools I have learned and talk iPad all day everyday.
Is there anything you miss from the Mac or Windows PC?
Nothing. It’s usually the other way around. I miss my iOS apps on my work PC. I will always find an excuse to move away from my PC and desk and work with my iPad.
What would you like to see in future iPads?
I would love to see a nicer, more Apple-like keyboard. They design such beautiful products, but the Smart Keyboard is ugly. It’s extremely useful and convenient, but design has been thrown out the window. Designing something that looks like it’s part of the iPad and complements the iPad’s sleek lines should be a priority.
PREVIOUSLY, ON MACSTORIES
Our top stories from the past week.
Halide 1.7 Brings New Depth Photography and ARKit Features, Darkroom Integration
Apple Releases ‘Welcome Home’ Video by Spike Jonze and Featuring FKA twigs to Promote the HomePod
Apple Confirms It Will No Longer Accept New iTunes LP Content After March 2018
Sunlit 2.0 Released as a Micro.blog and WordPress Photo Blogging App
Workflow 1.7.8 Adds ‘Mask Image’ Action, Things Automation Support, PDF Text Extraction, and More
Apple Leads First-Ever Swift Playgrounds Course for Blind and Low-Vision Students in Austin
UP NEXT ON MACSTORIES' PODCASTS
A preview of upcoming MacStories podcast episodes.
Next week on AppStories, Federico and John continue their series on app culture with a look at health and fitness apps.